Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe

The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (Turkish: Avrupa Batı Trakya Türk Federasyonu - ABTTF) is an umbrella organization of associations of Western Thrace Turks living in Germany and England . The seat of the federation is in Witten .

Formation and membership

The association was founded on February 28, 1988 in Witten as a federation of West Thrace Turks in Germany by seven associations. After joining the Association for Solidarity and Cooperation of West Thrace Turks in England , the federation received its current name. The federation includes 29 associations in Germany and one in England with a total of 6,000 members (as of 2015).

Historical background

After the end of the Greco-Turkish War from 1919 to 1922, Turkey and Greece signed the Convention on the Exchange of Population between Greece and Turkey on January 30, 1923 . This agreement excluded, on the one hand, the Turkish minority in Western Thrace and, on the other hand, the long-established Greek and Greek Orthodox population of Istanbul from the population exchange.

In addition to this convention, the Treaty of Lausanne signed by the two states on July 24, 1923 laid down the basic status and rights of minorities that were not covered by the population exchange agreement. As a result, Greece granted minority status to the 150,000 Muslim Turks living in western Thrace under Articles 37–45 of the Lausanne Treaty. They were granted the same rights as, conversely, the Greek Orthodox minority in Istanbul, e.g. B. the establishment and self-governing management of religious and social institutions as well as schools, the free use of one's own language, the free practice of one's own religion and the cultivation of one's own culture.

In the 1950s, there were an increasing number of cases in which the Greek authorities no longer fulfilled their obligations under the Lausanne Treaty. The Cyprus conflict also affected the Turkish minority in Greece and the Greek minority in Istanbul. After bloody attacks by Greek Cypriots against Turkish Cypriots, the pogrom in Istanbul broke out on the night of September 6th, 1955 . As a result, Greece for its part violated the human rights of the Turkish minority: religious freedoms were restricted, property owned by West Thracian Turks was expropriated, professional bans issued and citizenship revoked. From 1955 to 1998, Article 19 of the Greek Naturalization Act read: Citizens of no Greek origin who have left the country without thoughts of return can be expatriated from Greek citizenship. Around 60,000 Turks from western Thracia were forcibly expatriated between 1955 and 1998 or their emigration was forced. A large part fled to Turkey, the second largest group to Germany, the rest and others. a. to the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Austria, France, Sweden, Australia, the USA and Canada. There are currently around 30,000 West Thracian Turks living in Germany, including the descendants of the third generation.

The first association of Western Thracian Turks in Europe was founded on January 1st, 1978 in Giessen . This was followed by clubs in Stuttgart , Homburg , Munich , Dusseldorf , Kelsterbach , etc. In 1988 they joined together in the Federation of West Thrace Turks in Germany .

aims

The ABTTF claims to endeavor to develop solutions to the problems that the members of the West Thracian-Turkish minorities have to grapple with, both in the European countries to which they immigrated and in Greece. The ABTTF keeps the goal of solving the problems of the West Thracian Turks living in Greece through an inclusive minority policy that recognizes and respects their fundamental rights and freedoms. The ABTTF publicly draws attention to the violations of the rights of the Turkish minority in Greece as set out in the Lausanne Treaty. According to its own statements, the ABTTF acts “independently of parties, authorities and governments”, i.e. also independently of the government of Turkey.

organs

The statutes of the federation name five organs: the general assembly, representative council, board of directors, control commission and disciplinary commission.

International cooperation

Since 2006, the ABTTF has been the only civil society representation of Turks from Western Thrace that is accredited by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under the name Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe with a consultative status , and indeed as one of just under 3,000 organizations with a “special consultative status”, i. that is, it is only consulted on specific issues related to its objectives. Thanks to this status, the ABTTF is entitled to speak to bodies of the United Nations and to set up representative offices in the cities in which the United Nations has its headquarters. A representative office was opened in Brussels in 2010 to lobby the EU institutions. As a result of the lobbying efforts of the ABTTF, members of the European Parliament have repeatedly addressed a parliamentary question to the European Commission asking for its opinion on violations of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Turks in Western Thrace.

Since 2005 the ABTTF has regularly participated in conferences of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe ( OSCE ) in Warsaw on the implementation of the humanitarian dimensions and was a guest at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe .

As one of 366 partner organizations, the ABTTF works in the Platform for Grundrechte / Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP) of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA).

The ABTTF is a member of the Federal Union of European Nationalities FUEN . However, nothing is known about a collaboration between the ABTTF and representatives of the Greek minority in Turkey.

The ABTTF is also a founding member of the Secretariat of the International Congress of Western Thrace Turks, which was established to ensure cooperation and coordination between the organizations of Western Thrace Turks around the world. In order to demonstrate on the spot the problems to which the West Thracian Turks are exposed, the ABTTF and other institutions organize what are known as exploratory trips to West Thrace. As part of an exploratory trip, which was realized in March 2013 in the region through the cooperation between the ABTTF, the DEB party (Party for Friendship, Equality and Peace) and the cultural and educational society of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace (BAKEŞ), Hans -Heinrich Hansen, chairman of FUEN, and Bojan Breziger, deputy chairman of the association of daily newspapers published in Europe in local or minority languages, participated as observers in the proceedings pending at the appeals court in Thrace against the newspapers Gündem and Millet on March 22, 2013 was.

Web links

Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (official website)

Individual evidence

↑ The member associations

↑ https://www.abttf.org/html/index.php?l=ge statutes, § 2.

↑ https://www.abttf.org/html/index.php?l=ge statutes, § 7.

↑ Recommendation of the UN Committee to the ECOSOC

^ Department of Economic and Social Affairs: NGO Branch , there the List of non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council as of September 1, 2013 , accessed on May 28, 2014.

↑ Introduction to ECOSOC Consultative Status , accessed on May 28, 2014.

↑ Subject: Rights of the Turkish minority in Western Thrace, Greece , accessed May 28, 2014.

↑ Subject: Protection of the rights of the Turkish minority in western Thrace (Greece) , accessed May 28, 2014.

↑ Subject: Racist statements made by Greek MPs in the Greek Parliament , accessed May 28, 2014.